


Bright Magnetism

by shutterbug



Category: Ripper Street
Genre: Balloons, Canon Compliant, Cute, F/M, Flirting, Food, In Public, Making Out, Missing Scene, Picnics, Season/Series 02, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 08:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16615337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shutterbug/pseuds/shutterbug
Summary: Edmund tries to remedy his neglect of Jane with a picnic in the park.Potential missing scene for "Our Betrayal." Cuteness ahead.





	Bright Magnetism

**Author's Note:**

> As always, so many heartfelt thanks to my beta, GrumpyQueer. Just...the best. These fics wouldn't be the same without you.

He arrives early. A nervous, sharp knot settles in just below his sternum as he paces the same path over a trampled patch of grass.

Just hours previous, he had scrawled a note on a corner torn from one of Jackson’s autopsy reports, wedging it into a file that he presented to Jane, and in plain view of the press.

In plain, _ob_ vious view of Fred Best.

As he walked away then, he berated himself for his own recklessness—the note could have fallen out of the file, fluttered down, and found itself on the toe of Fred Best’s pointed shoe.

His mind, now, berates him only for allowing his own nervousness to cause delay—to keep him from the meeting place he had selected. He wonders if Best, instead of Jane, will amble over the landscape to meet him, radiating smugness—the very image of a canary-eating-cat. He forces himself to replace Best with Jane, swapping a trimmed mustache for carefully arranged curls.

In his peripheral vision, the Serpentine shimmers in the sunshine, dancing with the joy of a clear afternoon. Underneath Edmund’s nerves, his heart beats with a similar joy. One that has realized an emotional clarity. A clarity of  _feeling_ , a state as rare as the cloudless London afternoon.

With a full but fast intake of breath, he abandons his worn patch of grass and, with his back straight and tall, walks southeast. He finds a clear, dry spot between two lush rose bushes. Pink roses spring merrily from the greenery, bright and vibrant.

His breath wavers as it leaves him. He pictures her sunny smile. Her brilliant eyes, wide, open, and alert to the world. To _him_ , in a way few are.

To pass the time and provide a distraction, he spreads a blanket onto the grass and sets a heavy basket in the center. He steps beside the blanket and adjusts his hat. His hands dive into his pockets.

Then, he stands still.

He scans the landscape, the footpaths, and does his best to quell his anticipation. But the knot inside him expands. Its density blocks his breath, which stalls high in his chest. He closes his eyes for a moment to gather himself and, when he opens them, he sees the billow of her skirt, the brim of her hat, the confidence in her stride.

He raises himself to his full height and removes his hands from his pockets.

The cream color of her dress matches the roses she passes, and his heart beats wildly as she stops to breathe in the scent of the flower. Her face hovers above the delicate petals, and he breathes with her—inhaling with her, exhaling with her. It does little to calm his heart.

She stops an arm’s length in front of him, her head tilted to the side, eyeing him with warmth and curiosity.

“Edmund!” She smiles as she speaks his name. It elicits a smile of his own.

“Miss Cobden.”

“What a wonderful and unexpected invitation.”

“Well,” he says. “It is the least I could do in the way of a less professional…” He pauses to find the word she used. “Remedy.”

Her laugh—soft but genuine—inspires one that allows his breath to flow more easily. He tries to communicate his gratitude as he meets her eyes and draws close to her.

With a sweep of his hand, he gestures toward the blanket. “I…” He trails off, glancing about them. “It’s not Hampstead, as you originally suggested, all those weeks ago. But—”

“But this is closer to both your homestead and mine,” she says, full of understanding.

With his attention affixed on her face, she catches him off-guard, taking his hand and pulling him toward the ground. He lands with her, the blankets a soft buffer beneath him. The organic scents of earth and grass mingle with the perfume from her skin—layered, sweet, and rich.

He closes his eyes and draws a deep, slow breath, committing her scent to memory as best he can. Beside him, Jane remains silent, and he wordlessly thanks her for granting him this moment of quiet observation.

When he opens his eyes, he looks to her face. The sunlight highlights the fine wrinkles about her eyes. They show her age, but he revels in what they represent: her maturity, her knowledge, her passions. He knows his own creases show his age likewise, and he smiles softly at her— _for_ her—so she might see them clearly. The weight on his chest eases when he meets her gaze, when he sees that she watches him with as much attentiveness as he watches her. Alert for unspoken messages, flaws, hopes.

He finds no flaws with her.

Like a graceful bird, she swings her head to the side, her neck stretched and chin raised, and peers across the landscape. “This is gorgeous,” she says, pausing to arrange her skirt—a circle, like a grounded parachute, around her. “Thank you, Edmund.”

“I, er…” He swallows, wets his lips, then looks into the basket to remind himself of what he packed. “I brought crackers. And grapes. And sandwiches. And jam, for the toasted brie. Though, less toasted now.”

“Some of my very favorite refreshments.” Her voice floats into his ears, all graciousness and gratitude.

His breath stutters out of him with a weak laugh. “Really?”

“What kind of jam?”

“I...I don’t remember,” he confesses, his neck flush with embarrassment. Heat rises into his cheeks as he searches the basket, hands jostling little packages, _clink_ ing little dishes.

“Inspector, were these treats assembled by one of your officers for you, or is your mind so occupied with the business of our streets that you can’t clear it enough to find your way around your own basket?”

His ears start to burn, and he avoids her eyes. He tears off his hat to afford his scalp the relief of the breeze, then dives back toward the basket. When he lifts the corner of the linen inside—when his entire face feels ablaze—he finally uncovers the jar. “Ah, here,” he croaks, his throat sandy-dry. He presents the jar to her. “Blackberry, it seems.”

She takes the jar, her mouth wide with a grin. “Are you normally so arbitrary in your tastes that your own choice of flavors are so easily forgot?”

“I…” He searches for excuses that do not involve direct admissions of her effects on him, when he sees her smile fully bloom across her face. The heat slowly evaporates from his skin, his embarrassment with it. “You tease me.”

“I do.” She reaches into the basket and distributes their dishes, then returns to the basket for the cheese and crackers. “You are easy to tease, I’m afraid. Oh! You failed”—she lifts a bottle of white wine from the basket—“to mention this!”

“Better for you to make the discovery.” He unwraps two sandwiches, stacked with corned beef. He sets them on each plate in turn.  

“Indeed, or we may have been here until the sun set while you up-ended the basket in search of it.”

The previous moment’s heat rushes back to his cheeks. He focuses intensely on his sandwich, certain that his face now resembled a ripe tomato.

“But you have no objection,” she continues, as she removes the cork from the bottle of wine, “do you, to a direct woman? One who seeks to tease you, to…discover your pressure points, as well as your history and character.”

“You are…” His lips stretch with the start of a smile, despite his renewed embarrassment. “Quite right in your assessment.”

When he takes the wine glass she offers him, she raises her own to initiate a toast. “To your pressure points. They may make you easy to tease, Edmund, but such teasing makes me quick to smile.”

He squares himself to her and meets her eyes as he touches his glass to hers. The crisp wine pools in his mouth and cools his cheeks from the inside. He enjoys several sips before he remarks, “Well, if quick smiles are the results of your teasing, then you may do it as often as you like.” He reaches for the crackers. “Besides, I do not believe I possess the comedic gifts necessary to produce the same results on my own.”

“No, I dare say that you do not. Your inclinations tend more toward the dramatic, it would seem.”

Her smile fades into seriousness, and Edmund’s stomach pulses with sparks of heat as she shifts closer to him. He blinks down toward the blanket when she takes his hand and slowly weaves their fingers together, locking her hand to his with a gentle clasp. With his head bowed, he lets his eyes fall shut and concentrates on the pressure of her soft fingertips in the valleys of his knuckles. There, in the space between his bones, her touch ignites a comfort and pleasure across his hand, up his arm, and down—deep—into the core of his body.

She squeezes his hand with such tenderness and meets his eyes with such affection that it causes his breath to whirl out of him in a tempest of humid air. In the open garden, his mind scrambles, desperate for a reason to break away from her and stop himself from kissing her. From urging her down to the blanket and touching her, loving her, matching her tenderness.

As if in merciful response to his desperation, a colorful shape ascends in the distance, over Jane’s shoulder. He focuses on it, observes the diamond pattern of the teardrop envelope, the burst of tall flame from its burner.  

“Jane,” he whispers. With his unoccupied hand, he points behind her. “Look.”

She releases his hand and twists for a clear view. As she turns, he lets his eyes trace her dark curls and wander over the nape of her neck. He imagines, if he unfurled her hair, how she might gasp, how she might arch under him if he entered her.

Then her voice—clear and crisp—interrupts his visions. “Oh, how wonderful! The colors and the design and—”

“The engineering?” he asks.

“Yes. That, too.” She grins playfully, returning her attention to the balloon.

Edmund watches as the balloon rises and falls with the air currents, as it floats southward. Many months previous, he saw an early-morning balloon launch and marveled at its simplicity, at the pilot’s explanations of the envelope’s construction, the structure of the burner. The pilot spoke of an airborne journey that renewed, at least for a while, Edmund’s sense of wonder. As he listened then, he felt his heart soar long before the balloon had taken flight.

That wonder reawakens as he follows the distant balloon’s path, then watches Jane’s own excitement develop on her face. The corner of her mouth twitches with a smile. A soft blush sneaks into her cheeks.

She is captivatingly beautiful.

He waits for her to turn back toward him before he says, “I would love the opportunity, one day, to learn how to do such a thing.”

She tilts her head. “To ride in a balloon?” The shade of her cheeks still match the pink roses behind her.

“To, er…” He hesitates, worried for a moment that his wish would sound boyish, silly. “To pilot one. I would…” He lets his eyes fall to the blanket, the basket, the hem of her dress—all about him—before he returns his eyes to hers and continues. “I would know how it works.”

“Edmund, do you fancy yourself an adventurer?”

“An adventurer?” he asks, considering her question. “No. Perhaps a student.”

She studies him, looks back to the balloon, then resumes her studies. Her eyes search his face with an intensity that makes him squirm, forces him to reposition himself on the blanket, and rummage through the basket. He struggles to recall anyone who could, with a steady gaze, inspire in him such self-consciousness.

He does his best to busy himself. Centers his knife on his plate. Plucks a grape from its stem.

Her voice, low but curious, recaptures his attention. “Were you always an eager student?”

“As a boy?”

“ _And_ a man.”

“I…” He pauses to contemplate his answer, and reflect upon his childhood. “I enjoyed learning. Well,” he quickly adds. “I _enjoy_ learning.” He pops a grape into his mouth. “And you?”

A stretch of silence grows between them before she replies. “I took my lessons, but my father provided more of an education than much of my formal schooling.”

“How so?”

“He…” She pauses to fiddle with a stray weave of the basket. “He taught my sister and I...social responsibility. He took us to shelters to provide food, to donate our clothes. He showed us neighborhoods outside of our own, to expose us to the...the suffering of the greater world.” Her mouth forms a sad smile. “I saw more there, out in the world, than in any books, and I valued the experiences I was afforded.”

Edmund’s chest exploded with warmth for her. With admiration and deep appreciation.

“And you, Edmund,” she says. “What sort of information do you value?”

He breathes for a moment and reflects on the question. Finally, he answers: “There is...much I do not know and, although I cannot hope to enlighten myself in all matters, I would know as much as might be useful to me.”

“Yes, but do you limit your learning only to what might be _use_ ful to you? Do you not learn those things that merely... _int_ erest you?”

“You…forgive me, but I think you misunderstand. I refer to usefulness in…a broad sense.” He shifts across the blanket until their bodies nearly press against each other. “If I, for instance, learned the principles and practices necessary to pilot a balloon—an endeavor that serves no professional purpose—I might extend a much more exciting invitation to you than a picnic in the park.” He pauses, scans her face. “I could share an experience with you that is so... _rare_ and... _unique_ , that it would, perhaps, grant us the opportunity and freedom to observe the world and, not only learn more of the world itself, but more of each other.”

As his words disappear into the air between them, he takes her hand and kisses her first knuckle. His lips linger on her skin, and he feels the heat of his own breath on his face as he exhales. He plants another kiss, this time on the back of her hand, as he gently squeezes her fingers, letting go only after she returns the gesture.

As soon as he releases her, she turns her hand to slide her fingertips along his jawline. She pushes her fingers into his hair, caresses behind his ear, down the back of his neck. His breath stalls and starts, sporadic and shallow. His eyes drift shut as her thumb brushes his cheekbone, then traces his bottom lip.

Her name escapes him before he realizes he spoke. “Jane. I—” _love you. I love you._ “Jane.” A whisper, barely discernible over the sound of the breeze.

Before he opens his eyes, she kisses his open mouth. She cups his jaw, clutching him, keeping him close. His chest blazes, aflame with desire, excitement—with love for her. For her decisiveness, her playfulness, her boldness.

He leans in to her touch when she slides her hand over his shoulder, down his chest, and covers the heart that seems to beat for her.

When she pulls away from him, she smiles and asks him to walk her home. He agrees without hesitation. They repack the basket together. Then, with the basket on one arm and Jane on the other, Edmund grins brightly to no one as he leads her out of the park.


End file.
